“What?!” Luke could hardly believe it. “They’re proud of killin’ sea animals are they? They want to show off about killin’ God’s creatures do they? That’s very Christian – I don’t think!”

“Well, Luke,” Mum tried to calm him down, “I know you don’t like it sweetheart but Jesus ate fish didn’t he? Some of his disciples were fishermen.”

Luke was unconvinced.

“How do we know that? Just coz someone wrote it in a book thousands of years ago in a diff’rent language. P’rhaps they din’t translate it right. P’rhaps they din’t tell the truth. Prob’ly whoever wrote it wasn’t even there at the time so they wouldn’t even know!” He was gaining momentum. “And, Jesus was perfect,” he went on, “so he wun’t ‘ave done somethin’ that hurt someone else on purpose. And he told them disciples to stop bein’ fishermen din’t he? And he wun’t ‘ave done that if he thought they were doin’ a good thing. And Jesus said God cares about every sparrow so if he cares about every sparrow then he definitely cares about every fish and he said ‘thou shalt not kill’ so he couldn’t be clearer than that!”

Red in the face from talking so fast without taking a breath and satisfied he’d settled the point, Luke stomped out of the room. Mrs Walker winced as the hall door slammed and Luke’s heavy footsteps pounded the stairs. She held her breath until all was quiet and then, just as she relaxed back into scrubbing potatoes, her son’s face re-appeared around the door.

“Oh!” she gasped, “you made me jump.”

“Don’t get any fish,” he entreated, “please.”

The following morning at breakfast Luke was distracted. He made no argument when Jared consumed the last of the frosted flakes; he didn’t defend himself when Dad told him off for knocking over the sugar bowl even though it was actually Jared who’d done it in his haste to grab the frosted flakes. The rest of the family were too busy to notice, but Luke was not himself. Eventually, when Jared and Dad had left for the day and Luke was left alone with Mum he told her,

“I’ve decided I don’t want to go to Sunday School any more.”

“Well I know you don’t want to go Luke, but you’re going. It’s good for you. I want you to learn good values, to be a good boy,” she responded firmly.

“I’ve got good values!” said Luke, indignant. “What do you mean values?” he added.

Mum sighed.

“Oh Luke, being a Christian means being good and kind and respecting your father and mother and not stealing and not lying, things like that,” she explained, “doing as you’re told,” she added.

“Oh Luke why do you have to get so angry over these things? You might not want them to eat fish but they do. People do. People always have. And so do bears and cats and birds, and even other fish Luke. It’s the way of the world and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Fine. But you are not going to just disappear like a coward without telling them why. You’ve got to be grown up about it and make it clear to Eric why this sea harvest upsets you.”

Luke sulked. He was not a coward. He wasn’t afraid of anything. They walked to school in silence, Luke was deep in thought. When they entered the school gates they were almost run over by Simon Butler racing across their path on his new bike and then, when he knew he’d got their attention, he pulled a wheelie.

“He’s a bit of a show-off that one,” said Mum, amused.

Luke snorted.

“A bit?!” he scoffed, “more like a lot! He’s a lot of a show-off. He’s pretty much all show-off! There’s nothing else to ‘im. ‘cept idiot. And creep. He’s a idiot creep show-off!” Luke concluded decisively.

Mum chuckled.

“Boys will be boys,” she said, “he’s just making a point. He’s just making it clear to everyone watching that he’s good at that.”

***

All morning, while Mr Beardsley was talking about the ancient Greeks, Luke was thinking about what Mum had told him to do. He considered very carefully exactly what she’d said and by the time Dionysus had whisked Ariadne away from Theseus he was satisfied that he could do as he was told without compromising his prince pauls. He’d need Joe’s help.